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The T. S. Eliot Lecture with Steven Pinker

Booking Information

Date: Sunday 4 NovemberTime: 6pm
On the Abbey Stage

Tickets: €13 – €35 / Conc. €13 – €25

The third of five annual lectures inspired by T.S. Eliot’s impact on modern literature.

One of the world’s leading authorities on language and the mind and Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, Steven Pinker will give a lecture on the Abbey Stage called Pessimism in a World of Progress, followed by an interview with Will Self.

According to the latest data, people are becoming healthier, longer-lived, better fed, richer, smarter, better educated, safer, more connected — and, at the same time, ever gloomier about the state of the world. How can we explain pessimism in a world of progress? Steven Pinker explains why people insist on believing that everything from the quality of prose to the state of war and peace is in continual decline.

Carlo Gébler will introduce the evening and Eleanor Methven will perform ‘The Hollow Men,’ one of T.S. Eliot’s best-known poems.

Steven Pinker

A provocative speaker, much in demand, Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist who has been named by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. His lectures have helped millions demystify the science behind human language, thought, and action. Pinker is a Harvard professor, a TED speaker, and a bestselling author, twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

In his new book — Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress — Pinker argues that, despite fear-mongering and political upheaval, the world is getting better: peace, prosperity, knowledge and happiness are on the rise.

A native of Montreal, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has won a number of teaching prizes, and his research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has received numerous awards, including the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences.